


change, change your mind

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Because of alcohol, Drunken Confessions, Growing Old, Happy Ending, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Older Characters, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27259201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: Eddie Van Halen just died, and Billy realizes that, unlike Eddie, he's lived a life full of regret. Clearly, the only solution is to get shitfaced drunk and go serenade Harrington from the street. He won't regret that at all.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 14
Kudos: 95





	change, change your mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatgaywizard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgaywizard/gifts).



> Dedicated to Lex for always being there when I'm deep in my 80s metalhead wasted life feels.
> 
> I'm sure someone has done this maybe even a dozen times before, but since this is basically the Johnny Lawrence, Billy Hargrove crossover of my dreams, I couldn't not.
> 
> Written in like an hour and a half and barely checked so sorry if there are more mistakes than usual.

Billy is fifty three years old when he learns of Eddie Van Halen’s death. It takes him a full ten minutes to process the news, gripping the steering wheel of his beat-up forklift and just staring out at the junk yard of cars waiting for him to lift them to their death.

He shouldn’t even have been able to hear the announcement over the sounds of machinery, but the little radio he rigged up to hang from the ceiling above him has gotten tinnier over the years—too many dings from Billy’s wild driving—and he hears it just fine. Hears high-pitched voices easier than some songs, and the announcer’s voice has definitely hit a note he doesn’t want to hit. Everyone’s devastated about Eddie.

Everyone should be. It’s fucking Eddie.

Someone in the distance yells at him and he forces himself back into motion. He’s got two more hours before he can get out of here, and they’re behind on quota. Need to crush more cars or there won’t be space to put all the new ones they’ve just impounded. A kid with bright blond tips waves him to a stop and redirects him to the other end of the heap.

It’s too loud to hear, but there’s probably another mix-up, so Billy switches direction to the back of the lot and wonders when blond tips came back in. He remembers them the first time around. Thought of getting some himself because he was pushing thirty and getting sadder by the year. Figured doing something with his hair might cheer him up, but he never did.

Didn’t want to get laughed at by the guys at the impound lot. Not that they’d dare do it to his face, but he just… couldn’t be fucked.

And now Eddie’s dead. Christ, he lived a life though, even if he went out too early, barely ten years older than Billy himself.

Billy wishes he could say the same about himself.

The forklift stutters to a halt, and Billy realizes he’s gotten distracted again. He kicks himself into gear, pretending not to notice the Impala he’s got hooked onto the front of the machine. It’s criminal, some of the things they crush here. Rich bastards sometimes come through and take their pick, but there are so many that just… slip through the cracks.

Something about that thought echoes in Billy’s mind, but he shoves it way, way down, turns up the volume on _Hot for Teacher_ , and promises himself a slab when he gets home.

He’ll drink to Eddie tonight. The fucker deserves it.

*

One hour into his drinking session, and Billy is plastered. Okay, so maybe he had a traveller on the way home, pleasantly buzzed before he walked through the door, and maybe it’s a slab of whiskey premix he’s drinking rather than beer, but…

Maybe it’s just that he’s too old for this anymore. He’s too fucking old, and he has nothing to show for it but wrinkles and silver blond hair.

The stereo blares out a best of compilation, and Billy loses himself in the drink, sinking lower and lower onto his armchair. The neighbours will complain soon, because these apartment walls are too thin and Billy is too much of a shithead to be thrown a bone for once-off bad behaviour. So, fuck it, he picks up his guitar and plugs it into the amp and starts jamming along to _Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love_ until the walls are shaking _._

He thinks he heard someone in apartment 2b playing _Jump_ , so maybe he isn’t the only one having a private send off tonight, even if their taste in songs is objectively shit.

Fuck. When did Billy become so alone?

He realizes slowly that he’s stopped playing the guitar, the instrument just sitting loosely in his lap. Shouldn’t there be people around for this? Isn’t that what you do when you drink to a life taken too soon?

There are people he could invite, but no one he wants. His mates texted something to that group message box or whatever that Max set up for them, something about their local joint blasting Van Halen all night, but he barely knows how to use that thing apart from reading the messages so he lets it go. Besides, they’re all posers. They lived through the eighties, like him, but they didn’t _live_ through it, you know?

And there are no chicks in his life. Billy hasn’t had a chick in his life since… Well. He’s a confirmed bachelor, anyway.

Can you be a bachelor at fifty three? Or are you just a sack of shit?

At what age do you graduate from bachelor to sack of shit?

These are the important questions. And he asks himself them _ad nauseam_ , the confusion echoing over and over until the words are lost and all he knows is he fucked up. He fucked up big time. And yeah, okay, it’s not all his fault because the shit that went down in Hawkins when he left was… It was fucked up. He still doesn’t know what to believe about it, still doesn’t totally know it wasn’t a psychotic break even though Steve Harrington sat him down once and told him all about interdimensional monsters and it being safe now and—

Steve Harrington.

Billy loses his train of thought, because the song has switched from _Why Can’t This be Love_ to _Can’t Stop Loving You_ and he feels like he not only lived through the eighties, but like he’s living through them again. Like he’s living through a really fucking bad eighties rom com, if rom coms allowed dirty metalheads to take center stage, because that’s what he is. He’s a dirty fucking metalhead who never had the guts to admit the raging hard-on he had for Steve Harrington. Even during that handful of days where’d thought it might have almost, nearly, if Billy didn’t breathe wrong, have been possible.

Of course, he’d turned out to be wrong, but still. He’s the biggest chickenshit there is.

And now he’s old. He got… He got so fucking old. And the song is right, he _can’t_ stop loving Steve. He hasn’t stopped loving Steve all this time, and Eddie Van Halen is dead after living a life without regret, and Billy…

Billy has nothing but regret.

He climbs to his feet, wobbling a little but making the firm assessment that he’s fine, he’s not too drunk for this, and then he’s out the door and on the street. He doesn’t drive, because there are two of everything and he figures if he’s driving two 1991 Pontiac Firebirds then he has twice the chance of crashing, but that doesn’t matter because life is a _bitch_ and Steve Harrington moved into his neighbourhood two years ago.

Not that Billy noticed.

There was… There was a moment where he swore he saw Harrington in the parking lot of his shitty apartment complex. But then Billy blinked, rousing himself from the pile of empty cans he somehow accumulated through the night, and Harrington was gone. Just a figment of Billy’s overactive imagination and pathetic longing.

He staggers down the street, and then halfway there he gets a brilliant idea. He’s not going to actually talk to Harrington—that would be all kinds of stupid—but he just needs to like… see him. He just needs to see his house and remember all the lost years Billy wasted because his life is a fucking joke and he needs this.

But he also needs Harrington to notice him. Not that it’s him, just to know someone is there, and Billy has the best idea thanks to Max and her useless attempts to drag him into the twenty first century. He just needs to remember how Spotify works and…

Yeah. That’s it.

Billy grins, slams down the last of his can and crumples it beneath his boot. A car honks him, the passenger yelling for him to _pick it up you fucking slob_ , and he gives them the finger and staggers on.

The streets become wider, quieter. He can almost smell the expensive fucking cologne Harrington probably wears. Can hear the tittering bullshit no doubt coming from his perfect wife. God, Harrington must be such a cock these days.

Billy adjusts himself in his jeans, fighting back multiple waves of self-loathing and anger and resentment.

And then he remembers Eddie and he just… deflates. Fuck, none of it matters, does it?

Harrington probably has a hot wife who loves him and a house he earned and. Fuck.

He pulls the second can out of his jacket pocket and downs half in one. Swiping through his Spotify playlist bleary-eyed, he finds what he wants and hits play. It starts blaring immediately, and he frowns until he realizes Max must have bought him a subscription. Because she knows he loves music.

The thought is fucking depressing. He should call her.

He downs the rest of the can, throws it into a bush, and rounds the corner to Harrington’s house.

It’s lit up like a fucking castle, but then, it always was. Billy leans against the arch of the gate, hidden by the high fence, and grins, knowing his plan is flawless. If he hears the front door open, he’ll just leg it. Harrington’ll never catch him.

But this way he’ll know. Even if he doesn’t _know_ , Billy will have told him, and then he’s at least done something worthwhile with his chickenshit of a life.

He hits play, holds his phone above his head, and closes his eyes. The opening notes of _Can’t Stop Loving You_ begin to blare, and he can’t help nodding his head in time with the drums. He kept his hair long, and thank God it stayed thick even if it is silver, and it’s soon falling half out of his topknot as he headbangs in perfect time.

Nearly perfect time.

By the time the chorus starts, he’s singing at the top of his lungs. A noise distracts him, but the gate stays locked and there still aren’t any lights on. He swings his head to the side, but no one’s watching him; he’s still in the clear.

Harrington is none the wiser, no doubt just thinking some dumbass drunk person is on his step, and Billy can sing his heart out without fear.

Which he does.

He’s getting louder now, the words screaming from somewhere deep inside him, and he quits holding the phone above him to play along on air drums, headbanging so rough now the elastic holding his hair has flung off somewhere into the bush. That noise comes again, but it’s tinny and electronic and nothing he has to worry about because Harrington is still nowhere in sight.

The ending hits, and Billy slams out the final drum fill, and the song is over and his heart is racing, and he fucking did it.

_That one’s for you, Eddie,_ he thinks, closing his eyes and letting his head thunk back against the fence. _I didn’t totally waste my fucking life._

“Ah… Billy?” The voice crackles, like a phone speaker, but it’s definitely Harrington’s, and Billy stiffens as cold dread slides through him.

He snaps his eyes open, but there’s no one in sight, and then he sees it.

The doorbell.

The electric doorbell.

With the camera above it.

Right in front of him.

Or in other words, front row seats to the humiliatingly romantic one-man show Billy has just delivered, straight to Harrington’s doorstep.

“Oh, fuck,” he mutters, and then he turns to leg it.

But he’s a little more drunk than he expects, because his shin slams straight into the gigantic potted plant nestled in Harrington’s front gate and he pauses for a second to die.

Sweet death does not find him; Harrington does.

Billy blinks his eyes open to see two concerned faces above him. Fortunately or unfortunately, they both belong to Harrington. Who reaches out a hand and pulls Billy gently to his feet.

“You’d better come inside,” he says, and Billy has no choice but to obey, pushed gently but firmly down the drive to Harrington’s house.

“Nice place, Harrington,” he mutters, attempting to find solace in polite niceties.

“If you call me Harrington after serenading me at three in the morning,” Harrington says conversationally, “I’m going to nail your balls to the wall.”

“Nice place, Steve.”

“Atta boy.”

Steve guides him to an expansive dining room—eyes bright with what looks like agitation—drops him into a chair, and starts brewing coffee.

Billy runs a hand through his hair. “I gotta go,” he mumbles, and while the words are slurred, he is becoming terrifyingly sober. The full impact of what he’s just done is beginning to hit him. “Sorry to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Steve says, still facing the sink and gripping it with a white-knuckled grip even though it doesn’t take that long to rinse two mugs. “You’re fine.”

“Ah, fuck.”

Billy knows patronizing when he hears it. He hears it _a lot_. He tries to stand, but that seems to wake Steve out of whatever sink-related crisis he’s having because he spins around and holds Billy firmly in place.

Billy’s cock stirs. Steve has a death grip on him, and Billy likes a man who can rough him around a bit.

“Did you mean it?” Steve asks, breaking through Billy’s rapidly unfolding fantasy.

“Uh…” Billy struggles to focus on what Steve means, panic rising. “Eddie died, and—”

“I heard.” Steve cuts him off. “I thought of you. That doesn’t exactly explain your choice of tribute.” His lips twitch. “I had you pegged as more of a _Hot for Teacher_ guy.”

“I can sing you that one too, if you like.” Billy goes for humour, trying to find a grin but feeling seedier by the second.

“I preferred the drum solo.”

Steve doesn’t have any trouble grinning, and Billy takes a second to debate whether Steve would fall for the _look! Over there!_ trick. Probably not. Probably Billy would just end up confusing himself, because he’s clearly such a total fucking idiot.

“Did you mean it?” Steve asks again.

_Did you mean you can’t stop loving me_ , is the unspoken question. The one Billy would rather die than answer.

But Eddie’s dead, and Billy has nothing but regret.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rasping.

Steve’s eyes widen. He opens his mouth to say something, but the coffee maker makes a noise like it’s heated up ready to spit out five billion dollar espressos or however the fuck it works, and he turns away.

By the time he brings their coffee over, Billy’s heart is in his mouth, and he’s so full of _something_ he wants to be both sober and black out drunk all at once, because there’s no way he can handle this. And no way he wants to miss it.

Because Steve isn’t sitting opposite him.

He’s sitting beside him.

And he brushes Billy’s messy, sweaty hair out of his face with the casual affection Billy remembers from those few, precious days. The days where Billy had to hide out at Steve’s in recovery. When they were eighteen and apparently on the run from monsters.

But that was before Billy came to his senses and ran away, realizing that Steve was only acting out of duty because Hopper had told him to and Max had begged him to and whatever Billy was, he didn’t need anyone’s fucking pity.

Billy thought those days were gone.

Steve blows on his coffee mug and sits in silence, and the hope slowly fades from Billy’s chest, because obviously he was wrong. This was pity all along. And it’s pity again. And Billy doesn’t need this shit.

He tries to get to his feet, but Steve says, “Wait.”

Billy waits.

Steve pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes through quickly. The lights dim, and Steve smiles at something Billy doesn’t understand.

“Probably better if I tell you like this,” Steve says cryptically.

Then the opening notes of _Feel Your Love Tonight_ begin. Billy’s eyes widen, and before he can even adjust to the fact that Steve apparently knows Van fucking Halen, Steve begins to sing.

And Billy can’t even question if this is a joke because Steve is way too into this. And he knows all the words. And he’s—he’s fucking—

He’s serenading Billy in his own kitchen, which is about the time Billy realizes Steve is a little blitzed too, and the agitation he thought he saw in Steve’s eyes might actually have been adrenaline and wild hope. And then he remembers what Steve said earlier.

_I thought of you_.

Fuck.

Visions flash across his mind: of Steve sitting here, blind drunk, listening to Van Halen because Eddie died and the only person in Steve’s life shitty enough to be affected by that is Billy Hargrove, so that’s who he think of when he hears the news…

…because Steve has regrets, too.

“Do you mean it?” Billy rasps out, and Steve stops singing to tilt his head to the side, smile still playing on his lips. “Don’t fuck with me, H— Steve. Do you mean it?”

“Always have,” Steve says quietly.

Billy doesn’t wait for Steve to pin him to the wall, like his fantasy from five seconds earlier; he grabs Steve by the neck and pulls him into a bruising kiss of his own. Steve groans into his mouth, dragging Billy forward until he’s straddling him, grinding down onto Steve’s lap and kissing him deep enough to choke. Not that they do; they moan and gasp and clutch each other instead. Equally desperate, equally lost.

Something crashes to the ground—the mug, Billy presumes—but Steve doesn’t notice. He guides them both to their feet, barely letting Billy escape for air as he backs them away to the bedroom.

They hit several walls on the way there, but Steve’s hands aren’t only strong and rough. Billy finds they’re gentle as well, trailing lines on Billy’s skin that he’s only ever dreamed about before. Soft and aching, just like Billy remembers from those handful of days.

The handful of days that he realizes now are about to become so much more.

He lets Steve pull him down, lets their clothing disappear and their kisses mingle between the hot, heavy rasp of desire and the slow touch he’s craved for decades, and it’s only as they cry out together for the second time that Billy remembers what he’s wanted to ask for years.

“I thought I saw you in my apartment parking lot, once,” he says sleepily, drawing Steve close and tangling their legs together. “But I wasn’t sure if it was in my head.”

“It wasn’t,” Steve says after a pause. “I chickened out but… I was there.”

“Why?” Billy asks, his breath brushing across the sensitive skin of Steve’s neck, skin he can now taste and touch to his heart’s content.

Steve sighs into him, and then grins—a shit-eating grin that gives Billy about two seconds warning for what’s coming. “Because I can’t stop loving you.”

Billy bites him, hard enough to make him gasp, but it’s a playful bite, because they’re fifty three years old but the years have melted away in seconds and Billy almost, _almost_ feels young again.


End file.
